This all could have been avoided and the poor cat wouldn't have had to
suffer such trauma if the owners had taken the simple precaution of
keeping their cat in a carrier.

Megan

Atlantans rescue Panda, fly him home to Colorado
By JEFFRY SCOTT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/05/05  

The story of a cat named Panda who made it through a car crash, the
bureaucracy of animal rescue and 36 hours stranded, freezing, on the
median of I-285 in Atlanta had a warm, furry ending Friday.
Panda was reunited with his owner in Colorado Springs, Colo., apparently
having survived his I-285 ordeal better than many Atlanta commuters.
Panda is back in the loving arms of his owner, Heli Tanon, after
escaping the family car during an accident on I-285 and enduring an icy
wait until resolute rescuers reached him.

"He looks good, he really looks good," said Panda's owner, Heli Tanon,
by telephone from Colorado Springs. "There's not a scratch on him. I
can't believe it."
Panda, whose tenacity became a national news story, was met at the
Colorado Springs airport Friday afternoon by reporters and a TV crew.
The saga started Sunday afternoon, when Heli, his wife and daughter and
the cat were driving through Atlanta on their way back from Orlando and
their car hit a patch of ice on I-285 near Cascade Road.
The car veered into the median wall and was totaled. Heli, wife
NicolleTanon and 4-year-old daughter Samantha Urritia were unhurt. But
the rear window of the Mitsubishi Mirage was shattered, and Panda jumped
out.
After calling 911 and determining that nobody was hurt, Heli walked up
and down the median looking for Panda but couldn't find him.
A motorist stopped and said he had seen a cat run across the highway
into the woods. "I thought I'd never see the cat again," Heli said.
On Monday morning, Travis Shaw, an East Cobb resident, was driving to
the airport when he saw the cat huddled against the median wall. Shaw
said he called 911 and was switched to Fulton County Animal Services,
only to be told by an operator that they didn't rescue cats, only dogs,
unless the cat was injured.
"The conversation became heated," he said. "And the operator
disconnected me."
Shaw called a friend, who called 911 again, and a crew was dispatched
but still didn't locate the cat.
"We even sent a supervisor out with them," said assistant director for
Fulton County Animal Services Susan Feingold, who was stung by criticism
that her agency failed to act. "It is our policy to respond to any
injured animal that is in imminent danger, which this animal was," she
said.
Monday night, Travis Shaw talked to his mother, Pattie Shaw, who doubted
animal control had found the cat and drove from east Cobb with her
daughter looking for it.
After driving the stretch of I-285 around Cascade Road "three or four
times," she spotted Panda in the median, parked and called 911. Atlanta
police responded this time.
Officers stopped traffic on I-285 so Shaw could rescue Panda. The cat
was wearing a name tag with a pager number. She paged Tanon, and they
talked the next day.
Panda was soon loaded onto a Delta flight bound for Colorado Springs,
his passage paid for by two airline employees.
Shaw, a self-described "animal lover," said it was not the first time
she had rescued animals from the side of the road and found them homes.
"But this is my first experience with an out-of-state cat," she said.